European Council:
- arrival and statement by Martin SCHULZ, EP President
- extracts from the press conference

EP President Martin SCHULZ has taken part in the European Council meeting today 28 of June. In his speech he has urged European heads of state and government to come up with a convincing response to the debt crisis and to set a course for growth.

Only the original language version is authentic and it prevails in the event of its differing from the translated versions.
PDF version

TIME

DESCRIPTION

DURATION

00:00:00

Title

00:00:05

00:00:05

Exterior shot of the European Council headquarters.

00:00:05

00:00:10

Arrival of EP President Martin SCHULZ

00:00:08

00:00:18

Greetings to Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the Council, and other members of the Council. Ambience shots before the meeting starts (13 shots)

00:01:08

00:01:26

Press conference - SOUNDBITE (French) Martin SCHULZ, President of the EP: “We need solutions today and also tomorrow… We need to do both. Actually, if we say: ‘we go towards the deepening of the EU, towards the political union, because the political union is the pre-condition for the pooling of the debt’ I can understand. But if we say: ‘we go towards the deepening of the political union, but without the debt pooling’ then, I see a contradiction that needs to be discussed”.

00:00:42

00:02:08

SOUNDBITE (English) Martin SCHULZ, President of the EP: “The EP is intellectual ‘avant-garde’ of Europe. And perhaps you should ask the question to the people in the room besides why the lost two years time that cost a lot of money to the taxpayers in Europe, by ignoring the proposals of the EP made two years ago and present them to the outside world today as solutions… But, better late than ever”.

00:00:40

00:02:48

Cutaways (4 shots)

00:00:15

00:03:03

SOUNDBITE (English) Martin SCHULZ, President of the EP: “I hope that we will conclude on concrete measures for the next coming weeks and months on growth and jobs. We need growth in some of the member states, and we need specially jobs for young people in some of the member states, and to invest in growth and jobs in Greece, also in Italy in Spain and in Ireland and Portugal, is at the highest importance. I also think that the interest rates in Italy are too high and whatever we can do with the stability mechanism, potentially with a banking licence for the stability mechanism, we should do. Prime Minister Monti should not return to Italy without a result, that’s the reason why I suggested to the European Council an inter-institutional agreement between the Council, the Parliament and the Commission to accelerate the decision making”.

00:00:53

00:03:56

SOUNDBITE (German) Martin SCHULZ, President of the EP: “Tomorrow I will be in Germany, as a member of the German Socialist Party, and I will advise to my colleagues there to ratify the Fiscal Pact and the stability mechanism. Right now we need budgetary discipline and specially the stability mechanism, to control the risk of indebtedness because of the high interest rates in Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. Germany must consider that if we don’t succeed to lower the interest rates, there is a risk of loosing our exports market in the Eurozone, so the crisis would come over to us. That’s why I strongly advise to take measures now”.